As employee monitoring has become more and more popular, employees are often worried that they’ll be ‘spied on’. While many have accepted the fact that employers will track their activities while at work, the concern is that the tracking will extend to personal communications, social media, or other private activities.
If you want to know exactly what you can do to avoid the workplace surveillance risks of being spied on – here are a few things you should try:
- 1. Understand Your Rights
While many states allow employers to monitor their employees while at work, some do have data privacy laws that may require consent or other conditions. It is important that you are aware of your rights and understand what employers legally can and cannot monitor.
If you feel that your rights are being violated, you should seek legal counsel on how to proceed.
- 2. Be Aware of Intrusive Types of Monitoring
Nowadays the best employee monitoring software can track various types of activity. For example, Controlio not only has time tracking features, but can also track user activity, and capture keystrokes, screenshots, or even video recordings. It can also block apps or websites, and monitor communication via email or instant messaging.
Typically you will be able to find out what types of monitoring are being used by asking about the company’s monitoring policy. Once you do, you can determine whether or not it is a privacy concern.
- 3. Request Access to Your Data
A good way to check if you’re being spied on is to request access to the data that’s been collected and see for yourself. Many employers are happy to provide employees with this kind of access as it doesn’t harm them in any way.
In Controlio it is easy enough to give employees access to their own data. If it is more convenient, it is even possible to have reports emailed to employees at fixed intervals.
- 4. Avoid Conducting Personal Business on Work Devices
As a rule you should avoid conducting personal business that you consider private on work devices as you don’t have much expectation of privacy. Although this isn’t ideal, it is the best way to ensure personal information isn’t inadvertently captured.
If you want you can determine what it is safe to do on work devices based on the software that is used. For example if you know Controlio is capturing keystrokes and screenshots you may want to avoid any type of personal communication or using passwords to personal accounts.
Conclusion
While these solutions aren’t perfect and won’t completely stop employers from using employee monitoring in ways that are intrusive – at least they should give you a place to start. At the end of the day it is worth noting that majority of employers don’t really want to intrude upon your privacy but may just be doing so as a byproduct of their efforts to monitor activities for other reasons.
If you do have legitimate concerns, be sure to raise it with them and you may be surprised at how willing they are to listen.